View full sizeBotto's Express on the Ocean City boardwalk is open all year round.Photo provided

Vincent Botto Sr. may be sitting in an office in Mount Royal, but his heart — and his eyes — are in Ocean City the whole time.

Step inside Botto’s office at the C.W. Brown Foods plant along Kings Highway, where Botto’s Italian sausage is made — temporarily inside trailers due to construction going on there — and Vincent, who commutes to work every day from Ocean City where he lives, keeps watch on everything that’s happening at his new boardwalk restaurant, Botto’s Sausage Express.

“See,” he said pointing to the computer screen. “I can watch everything that’s going on down there. I look at it all day long.”

Not that he’s worried. His wife, Darleen, and son, Vincent Jr., have things completely in hand down there. With a great staff and a great concept, how could he go wrong?

Formerly a Mullica Hill resident, Vincent, brother of Robert and Enrico who run Botto’s Italian Line Restaurant in Swedesboro, turned his father’s dream of one day owning a quick-service restaurant into an eatery on the bustling boardwalk.

“Basically, it’s his concept, his dream,” said Vincent.

View full sizeThe Botto family, Robert, Vincent Sr., Darleen and Vincent Jr., stand in front of a flag with the restaurant's sign on it at the store in Ocean City during the summer.Photo provided

Robert Sr., who died in 2007, always talked about opening up a “fast-food type” of restaurant — featuring the family’s famous sausages and meatballs, of course — that could be a great franchise opportunity. Located at 10th and Boardwalk, where a zombie laser tag attraction and a clothing store once sat, Botto’s Sausage Express is the realization of that dream, a dream Vincent said he could never have gotten off the ground without the support of the entire Botto family.

“It was an idea he had when he built the Italian Line Restaurant in the ’90s,” Vincent said. “But that restaurant, it turned out to be too high-end for this idea.”

His father’s vision was to offer busy families a home-cooked meal from start to finish at a reasonable price. If Colonel Sanders could do buckets of chicken, why not do buckets of spaghetti and meatballs or sausage?

Buckets of spaghetti and meatballs or sausage? That’s right, buckets.

The Botto Bucket, which contains four to six servings of spaghetti or penne (even ravioli) with sausage or meatballs for under $30, has already started catching on, Vincent said.

“Our buckets are the best bargain going,” he said. “And you can recycle the bucket and use it on the beach the next day.”

The restaurant overlooks the beach, a view Vincent said he can’t get enough of. Every weekend, Vincent finds himself at the new restaurant, surveying that very vista while on the job.

“When I sit at the counter and look out at the ocean ... how could it be any better than that?” he said.

The restaurant opened up on the famous boards in April. And although it had a slow start — “due to the rain” — Vincent said in July and August, things started picking up. Offering samples of sausage in front of the store has helped get people in, and word of mouth has been great, he said.

“We’re not looking to set the world on fire,” Vincent said.

The restaurant, bigger on the inside than it looks when you first walk by, will be open all year round, Vincent said.

“People do live in Ocean City all year,” he said. He’s hoping to attract residents and offer early bird specials, as well as catering.